Revelations on Rafik Hariri’s assassination

[Freeman]

Revelations on Rafik Hariri’s assassination


While western media have announced that indictments against Hezbollah will be issued shortly by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Russian magazine Odnako challenges the entire UN investigation. Thierry Meyssan posits that the weapon used to assassinate former Prime Minister Rafik Hairiri was supplied by Germany. Former German prosecutor and first commissioner in charge of the UN probe, Detlev Mehlis, seemingly doctored evidence to cover up his country’s involvement. These revelations embarrass the Tribunal and reverse the tide in Lebanon.

----------------------------------------------
All the conflicts rocking the Middle East today crystallize around the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). Peace hinges on it, and so does war. For some, the STL should bring about the dissolution of the Hezbollah, quell the Resistance and establish a Pax Americana. Others consider that the STL is flouting the law and subverting the truth to ensure the takeover of a new colonial order in the region.

The rest
Revelations on Rafik Hariri's assassination [Voltaire]

 

[Marc39]

Muslims are a dreadful curse.

Alexis de Toqueville...

Istudied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. So far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.

Winston Churchill...

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/River-War-Sir-Winston-Churchill/dp/1598184253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288411221&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: The River War (9781598184259): Sir Winston S. Churchill: Books[/ame]

 

[Trajan]

for some balance....

Who Assassinated Rafik Hariri?
A U.N. investigation may soon implicate Hezbollah in the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister.
Nov. 25 2010


snip-

Early in the U.N. investigation, clues seemed to point to a jihadist suicide bomber. Various Islamist terrorists had used similar Mitsubishi vans in a spate of other Beirut bombings. Elements in the bomb traced back to military explosives used by al Qaeda of Iraq. A convenient videotape sent to Al Jazeera television showed a lone suicide bomber named Abu Addas claiming that he acted on behalf of an unknown jihadist group.

But the U.N. investigative team, which included forensic experts in explosives, DNA and telecommunications from 10 countries, found convincing evidence that the assassination was a cleverly disguised, state-sponsored operation. The Mitsubishi van had been stolen in Japan, shipped via the port of Dubai to the Syrian-controlled Bekka Valley where it was modified to carry the bomb, and then, only days before the assassination, driven over a military-controlled highway to Beirut.


One participant in the planning of the attack was Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, a Syrian intelligence operative. Saddik told investigators that the putative bomber, Abu Addas, was a mere decoy who had been induced to go to Syria and make the bogus video, and then was killed. He further alleged that the actual van driver had been recruited under a false flag in Iraq, so presumably if he defected or was captured he would wrongly identify his recruiters as jihadists.

Saddik said that the "special explosives" in the TNT had been intentionally planted there to mislead investigators in the direction of Iraq. Saddik was arrested for his role in the crime in 2005 and was released without reason the following year. He vanished in March 2008 from a Paris suburb.

Meanwhile, the U.N. team uncovered evidence that the actual conspirators had resources and capabilities—including wiretaps of Hariri's phones—that pointed to a state-level intelligence service. U.N. telecommunications analysts determined that eight new telephone numbers and 10 mobile telephones had been used, along with the wire-tapping, to follow Hariri's movements with split-second precision and move the van into place.

In addition, a former Syrian intelligence agent told investigators that he had driven a Syrian military officer on a reconnaissance mission past the St. George Hotel on the day before the bombing, and that the officer told him that four Lebanese generals, in collaboration with Gen. Rustam Ghazali, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, had provided "money, telephones, cars, walkie-talkies, pagers, weapons, and ID cards" to the alleged assassination team.

Judge Mehlis's report, issued in October 2005, concluded "there is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials, and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services." Judge Mehlis had the four Lebanese generals arrested in 2005.

When the judge moved to question Syrian officials—including the intelligence chief, Assef Shawkat, who is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in law—the Syrians stonewalled and protested the inquest's direction. In January 2006, the U.N. Security Council replaced Judge Mehlis with Serge Brammertz, a 43-year-old Belgian lawyer who had served as deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Mr. Brammertz was replaced in 2008 by Daniel Bellemare, Canada's assistant deputy attorney general. In April 2009, Mr. Bellemare requested that the four imprisoned Lebanese generals be released because of the "complete absence of reliable proof against them." And so they were.

Meanwhile, Lebanese investigators working on behalf of the U.N. team had re-examined cell phone records from 2005. They uncovered a network of about 20 mobile phones that had all been activated a few weeks before the attack and then silenced just afterward. This so-called second ring of phones had been calling the same phone numbers as the eight phones that coordinated the attack.

According to a report published by Der Spiegel in May 2009, investigators traced the second ring of phones to a command post of Hezbollah's military wing under the notorious Imad Mughniyeh, who had been responsible, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, for other spectacular bombing attacks, including the 1983 U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut.

But before this cell phone evidence could be further examined, the Lebanese chief investigator working on this complex network was killed in Beirut in 2009. (Mughniyeh, who might otherwise have been called as a witness, had himself been assassinated in 2008.)

way more at-

Edward Jay Epstein: Who Assassinated Rafik Hariri? - WSJ.com

 

[Marc39]

for some balance....

Who Assassinated Rafik Hariri?
A U.N. investigation may soon implicate Hezbollah in the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister.
Nov. 25 2010


snip-

Early in the U.N. investigation, clues seemed to point to a jihadist suicide bomber. Various Islamist terrorists had used similar Mitsubishi vans in a spate of other Beirut bombings. Elements in the bomb traced back to military explosives used by al Qaeda of Iraq. A convenient videotape sent to Al Jazeera television showed a lone suicide bomber named Abu Addas claiming that he acted on behalf of an unknown jihadist group.

But the U.N. investigative team, which included forensic experts in explosives, DNA and telecommunications from 10 countries, found convincing evidence that the assassination was a cleverly disguised, state-sponsored operation. The Mitsubishi van had been stolen in Japan, shipped via the port of Dubai to the Syrian-controlled Bekka Valley where it was modified to carry the bomb, and then, only days before the assassination, driven over a military-controlled highway to Beirut.


One participant in the planning of the attack was Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, a Syrian intelligence operative. Saddik told investigators that the putative bomber, Abu Addas, was a mere decoy who had been induced to go to Syria and make the bogus video, and then was killed. He further alleged that the actual van driver had been recruited under a false flag in Iraq, so presumably if he defected or was captured he would wrongly identify his recruiters as jihadists.

Saddik said that the "special explosives" in the TNT had been intentionally planted there to mislead investigators in the direction of Iraq. Saddik was arrested for his role in the crime in 2005 and was released without reason the following year. He vanished in March 2008 from a Paris suburb.

Meanwhile, the U.N. team uncovered evidence that the actual conspirators had resources and capabilities—including wiretaps of Hariri's phones—that pointed to a state-level intelligence service. U.N. telecommunications analysts determined that eight new telephone numbers and 10 mobile telephones had been used, along with the wire-tapping, to follow Hariri's movements with split-second precision and move the van into place.

In addition, a former Syrian intelligence agent told investigators that he had driven a Syrian military officer on a reconnaissance mission past the St. George Hotel on the day before the bombing, and that the officer told him that four Lebanese generals, in collaboration with Gen. Rustam Ghazali, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, had provided "money, telephones, cars, walkie-talkies, pagers, weapons, and ID cards" to the alleged assassination team.

Judge Mehlis's report, issued in October 2005, concluded "there is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials, and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services." Judge Mehlis had the four Lebanese generals arrested in 2005.

When the judge moved to question Syrian officials—including the intelligence chief, Assef Shawkat, who is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in law—the Syrians stonewalled and protested the inquest's direction. In January 2006, the U.N. Security Council replaced Judge Mehlis with Serge Brammertz, a 43-year-old Belgian lawyer who had served as deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Mr. Brammertz was replaced in 2008 by Daniel Bellemare, Canada's assistant deputy attorney general. In April 2009, Mr. Bellemare requested that the four imprisoned Lebanese generals be released because of the "complete absence of reliable proof against them." And so they were.

Meanwhile, Lebanese investigators working on behalf of the U.N. team had re-examined cell phone records from 2005. They uncovered a network of about 20 mobile phones that had all been activated a few weeks before the attack and then silenced just afterward. This so-called second ring of phones had been calling the same phone numbers as the eight phones that coordinated the attack.

According to a report published by Der Spiegel in May 2009, investigators traced the second ring of phones to a command post of Hezbollah's military wing under the notorious Imad Mughniyeh, who had been responsible, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, for other spectacular bombing attacks, including the 1983 U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut.

But before this cell phone evidence could be further examined, the Lebanese chief investigator working on this complex network was killed in Beirut in 2009. (Mughniyeh, who might otherwise have been called as a witness, had himself been assassinated in 2008.)

way more at-

Edward Jay Epstein: Who Assassinated Rafik Hariri? - WSJ.com

It's no secret that Syria and Hizballah are complicit in Hariri's assassination. His son in Lebanon is merely trying to save his own life at this point

 

[danielte]

we all knew that it was Hezbollah.

 

[Sallow]

One of the truly awful events of our time.

Hariri was a visionary and a hero.

 

[Jos]

Israel?

 

[Ropey]

Israel?

The sign in Farsi says they were drug dealers

Ah, now I understand the hate for Israel.

 

[Sunni Man]

Any time there is chaos, conflict, or war, anywhere in the world.

Just dig under the surface and you will find the Mossad and Israel behind the event.

 

[Ropey]

Any time there is chaos, conflict, or war, anywhere in the world.

Just dig under the surface and you will find the Mossad and Israel behind the event.

Thank you for my sig...

 

[Marc39]

Israel?

Spain. The Spanish Inquisition continues.